


Till then my windows ache

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, M/M, Pining, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When he needed me most, I couldn't save him. We have to save him now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till then my windows ache

**Author's Note:**

> Contains a small spoiler from the CA:TWS trailer. Title and epigraph from Sonnet LXV Pablo Neruda (translated by Stephen Tapscott).

so I wait for you like a lonely house  
till you will see me again and live in me.  
Till then my windows ache.

*

Steve's not sure if it was a whim or a joke at the beginning, but when he signs on with SHIELD after the Battle of New York, Fury teams him with Natasha, and it's the best thing that's happened to him since he woke up. 

She's taught him to minimize his tells, to fight with finesse as well as power, to use his size to advantage while never forgetting the dirty tricks he'd learned as a shrimp. She's fought him to a draw seventeen times and has beaten him twelve in the past eight months. She's never let him win, and she's savaged him when she suspected that he let her.

He's told her about Peggy, about Bucky, about his mother. In return, she's let him see some small private parts of her life--Tolstoy is her favorite writer, Billie Holiday her favorite singer. She takes him to a small jazz club in the Village and he can almost pretend it's 1945 and she's his girl. She lets him take her to the O'Keeffe exhibition at the Whitney and only laughs a little when he gets flustered discussing the sexual symbolism of the paintings. 

When he learns how to use a digital camera--not just the one in his ridiculously advanced StarkPhone, but the digital SLR he buys when he realizes his paycheck will more than adequately cover rent, utilities and food--she's his favorite subject. She laughs and poses for him, but he likes the candid shots best, the ones where she looks like herself instead of whoever it is she thinks he wants to see.

They have spent hours pressed up against each other in small spaces, waiting for the right moment to strike, her body soft and curved and coiled like a snake. He can identify her in the dark by the scent of her hair, the beat of her pulse, the soft tread of her feet when she lets him hear it. He sees her in his dreams, and in the fantasies he tries not to indulge in, because he's still not a hundred percent sure she can't read his mind. He knows she can read his face, even as he's gotten better at hiding behind his shield and code name.

They are professionals. Colleagues. He admires her skills and she respects his. He would like to call her a friend (he would like to call her more) and he's not sure she would agree (he's not brave enough to find out). 

He's a master strategist when it comes to fighting, but he can't settle on a plan of attack when it comes to confessing his feelings to a woman he likes. He could box them up and put them away--he's done it before. Bucky never suspected a thing, though Natasha is a damn sight sharper about these things than Bucky ever was. (It almost doesn't hurt to think that anymore; it almost doesn't feel disloyal.)

When she asks if he's too scared or too shy to ask out Kristin from Statistics, he says he's too busy. It's not the whole truth, but it's not a lie. It will have to do for now.

*

"Tell me about him," he demands, unable to keep the desperation out of his voice. "Tell me what you know." They're holed up in one of her safe houses, still singed and smelling of smoke, but safe for the moment. His hands are still shaking a little; he'd had to carry her out after the building exploded, and for a few seconds he'd thought that she was--But she's not, and she's the only one who can answer his questions now.

"Steve--"

He clenches his jaw and shakes his head. "Tell me."

"He's the best," she says. "He trained me. He trained all of us, but I was his favorite. I was the best."

Steve nods. "Of course."

That wins him a half-smile. "He was valuable to them, so they kept him in stasis between missions. Sometimes for years. Rumor had it he's been active since the Fifties, and possibly even before then." Her eyes go soft for a moment. "He taught me to speak English like an American. He took me to Paris for my first mission and toasted me with champagne when it was done. For a long time, I believed I was in love with him, and he with me." She curls her fingers around his, rubs the back of his hand with her thumb. "Your turn now."

"We were ten," he says. She gives him a startled look and he can see the realization dawn in her eyes. "I was getting the snot beat out of me, which was pretty par for the course in those days. He rescued me that day, and every day after that, for fifteen years. And when he needed me most, I couldn't save him." He tightens his hand around hers. "I still see him my nightmares. I see him falling over and over again and I can't save him. I can't ever save him." He brings her hand up to his lips; her skin tastes of soot and salt. She gasps but doesn't pull away. "We have to save him now."

*

For the first few weeks after they get Bucky back, he refuses to see Steve. 

Steve sits outside his cell every day, waiting for him to change his mind, but Natasha is the only one he'll speak to. They converse in Russian, which Steve has never learned, though he's thinking now might be a good time to start. 

"He's ashamed," Natasha tells him one night after she's dragged him away from the Helicarrier for drinks. 

"He shouldn't be."

"Emotions aren't rational, Steve. There's no should or shouldn't; there's just how he feels." She takes a sip of her scotch. "Give him time."

Steve grunts in frustration, but time is the one thing they have now, so finally he says, "I can do that."

"Good." 

At the end of the evening, she presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. He swears his lips are still tingling hours later.

*

Bucky's been in SHIELD custody for five weeks when he finally agrees to see Steve. Steve steps tentatively into his cell and Bucky gives him an achingly familiar half-grin. 

"Odds are I won't snap and kill you," he says. "But you've got to know it could happen."

"It won't," Steve says, and he pulls Bucky into a tight hug. Bucky smells the same but different, sweat and metal and unwashed hair; his breath is warm and smells of toothpaste, and Steve curls his fingers in the rough material of his shirt and holds on.

"I thought you would hate me," Bucky murmurs into his neck.

"I don't."

"You should."

"I can't," Steve says. "I never will."

"Never's a long time."

Steve exhales in a huff. "Yeah."

Bucky pulls back, smiling, though his eyes are bright with unshed tears. "Sap."

Steve shoves him gently. "Jerk."

"Yeah."

*

Eventually, SHIELD releases Bucky into his custody, and Steve takes him back to Brooklyn, looking for something familiar, something safe. They find an apartment in Williamsburg and settle into a routine. Natasha visits often, and Steve tries to make himself scarce, remembers that from the old days, when Bucky would bring girls home, and Steve would hide out on the fire escape until they were done. He's bigger than he was then, and more noticeable, and neither Bucky nor Natasha seems to appreciate his efforts.

"Why do you always leave when I arrive?" she asks him one day, pinning him in the doorway with a sharp look. 

"I figured you'd want some privacy," he says, trying but failing for once to meet her gaze. The tips of his ears burn, and for a fleeting moment he wishes he were small again, small enough to slip away unnoticed, so he doesn't have to pretend he doesn't feel what he feels.

Natasha hums thoughtfully, and then hooks a finger in his belt loop before tugging him back into the apartment and letting the door swing shut behind her. "I never took you for a coward."

"Ooh," Bucky says from where he's lounging on the couch. "That's a fight in my neighborhood."

"Shut up, you," she says, shooting a glare in his direction. "You're no better. Do I have to do all the work around here?"

"That's a good bet," Bucky says, sitting up slowly, an intent look on his face that Steve can't interpret. 

"Sit." Natasha pushes him down on the couch next to Bucky and climbs into his lap. He glances over at Bucky, who's smiling now and moving closer. 

"I think I like where this is going," Bucky says, his gaze flicking between them.

"What?"

Natasha's hands are warm and tight on his shoulders. "You have to ask for what you want, Steve."

Steve opens his mouth to reply but his words are swallowed by Natasha. Her mouth is hot and wet over his, and he makes a soft, whining noise low in his throat, his fingers clutching at the soft swell of her hips as she turns his entire world upside down.

He whimpers when she pulls back and then Bucky's kissing him, the metal hand cool and smooth against his cheek and his tongue slick and rough in his mouth. 

Natasha makes an approving noise and captures Bucky's mouth when Steve finally lets him go.

They turn to him with slick red lips and avid eyes, their ragged breathing and the rapid beat of Steve's own heart the only sound in the room, and Bucky says, "Okay?"

"Yeah," Steve answers, leaning in for another kiss.

end


End file.
